Abstract
Thomas Clifford Allbutt was born in the Vicarage, Dewesbury, Yorkshire on 20 July 1836. His father was an influential vicar, a good botanist and gardener. His mother was member of a scholastic family and both were friends of literary figures including the Brontës. Young Allbutt was educated at St Peter's School, York, Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and at St George's Hospital, London. He obtained his Cambridge MB degree in 1861 and then studied neurology with Duchenne and Trousseau in Paris. He became a consultant physician with a large practice in Leeds and, in due course, physician at the General Infirmary at Leeds and FRCP (1884). After a short period as Commissioner in Lunacy in London, he was appointed Regius Professor of Physic at Cambridge with honorary fellowship at his old undergraduate college, Caius. This meant an overlap of five years with Archibald Edward Garrod (1857–1936), Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford. Author Alexander G Bearn has already written a scholarly account of Garrod so he was able to provide a fascinating comparison of the two Regius Professors. Garrod provided background basic scientific techniques to support his clinical work whereas Allbutt was essentially an intelligent clinician without basic scientific background. This did not, of course, make Allbutt a comparative nonentity for he was highly intelligent, had a wide cultural background and was an extremely hard worker. His System of Medicine, a multi-authored eight-volume textbook published by MacMillan between 1896 and 1899, became a competitor to Osler's The Principles and Practice of Medicine (1892). Allbutt thought nothing of writing fourteen chapters himself. He also wrote a companion volume, A System of Gynaecology, perhaps to reflect his belief in the unity of medicine. He designed a more conveniently sized clinical thermometer and he popularized the use of the ophthalmoscope as a routine procedure in clinical medicine.
Both topics became well-received texts entitled Medical Thermometry (1870) and on the use of the ophthalmoscope in Diseases of the Nervous System and of the Kidneys (1871). He became President of the British Medical Association, delivered several important Medical Lectures, was awarded numerous honorary degrees, received a well-earned Knighthood (1907) and was appointed Honorary Colonel of the Royal Army Medical Corps.
Allbutt remained Regius Professor from his appointment in 1892 until his death, at the age of 88 years in 1925. This beautifully researched text of 99 pages amply conveys to the reader the book title Scholar and Physician, and the contemporary medical scene in Europe and the United States. Professor Alexander G Bearn was an ideal author for such a study in view of his own experience worldwide. After an early education at Epsom and Guy's, his medical training was at Hammersmith and the Royal Free Hospitals, research at the Rockefeller Institute, New York, leading to the Professorship and Chair of Medicine at Cornell Medical School, New York. The Royal College of Physicians has given him elegant support with a pleasing production and handsome illustrations.